Book Review: The Alchemist

The Alchemist is one of those books that you’ll want to read before starting out on a new venture or a life-changing journey—or simply in those quiet treacherous moments when you start to doubt yourself and everything you set out to achieve. 

Now, this is not so much a story about an antiquated chemist who claims to have the power to turn lead into gold, but more about a shepherd boy in search of his Personal Legend (though I never said there wasn’t treasure involved). 

For whether you believe in God, omens, Universal energies, good vibes, or feng shui, Paulo Coelho assures us that “to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation." So take a journey. But first, read this review.

Book Review: The Museum of Extraordinary Things

A turn of the century Coney Island Freak show with two headed animals, a giant tortoise, a girl with no arms, sword swallowers, a man covered in hair: such is the setting of Alice Hoffman's macabre historical fiction The Museum of Extraordinary Things.

This highly enjoyable, yet unconventional love story explores the darker side of early 20th Century New York City as well as the darker side of man.

Book Review: The Paper Magician

Considering it’s Christmas time and Harry Potter is starting to air on ABC Family, I was excited to read a YA (young adult) fantasy novel. So I picked up The Paper Magician, the first in a trilogy about a young girl and aspiring magician who becomes an apprentice to a renown Paper Magician after graduating from Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined. 

However, Paper Magic, or Folding, is seen as a joke in the young magician community. Our character, Ceony, initially wanted to study Smelting, or Metal Magic. So when she gets an assigned apprenticeship to a Folder named Emery Thane, she has to learn to deal with it, because the material you bond with during an apprenticeship is a lifetime commitment.

However compelling this magical world seems, I don’t want to mislead you. This is not a generous review.

Book Review: Girl Online

If your Facebook feed looked anything like mine this week, then I think you have heard of the book I am reviewing today. Headlines described a 24 year old girl in the UK whose debut novel has outsold any other author in the UK in its first week. That is an insanely impressive statistic, made especially obvious by the list of names she has beat (J.K. Rowling? Dan Brown?). When I clicked the link to discover this juggernaut of the literary world, I was pleasantly surprised to see Zoe Sugg staring back at me. I have been an avid viewer of her vlogs for a couple of years now, and I have always found her to be a delightful breath of fresh air in the YouTube community. Knowing what I already knew about her, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of her book, and that I did.

Book Review: Without You, There Is No Us

Everything has been so hushed for decades that if you press your ear to the stillness, you can almost hear the muted cries.

That is how Suki Kim, the author of the newly released non-fiction Without You, There Is No Us, describes North Korea, a place shrouded in mystery, fear, and pain.

This deeply touching memoir gives an emotional, rare, and brutally honest glimpse into a world that few on the outside have seen. 

Book Review: Station Eleven

This is one of those books that I have been dying to get my grubby paws on. I have seen countless positive reviews of this novel and the synopsis peaked my interest, but I have to admit that the cover pulled me in the most. I know it is a reader's SIN to judge a book by it's cover, but the tents surrounded by a starry night sky looked so peaceful! Peaceful is not a word I would use to describe this book now that I have read it, but the cover did not lead me astray nevertheless. 

Book Review: The Cruelest Month

Kneeling in the fragrant moist grass of the village green Clara Morrow carefully hid the Easter egg and thought about raising the dead, which she planned to do right after supper.

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny wastes no time getting right down to it's eerie business. A beautiful, terrifying murder mystery with a supernatural twist, this book rivals the best of the best and could very well be one of the best mystery crime novels I have ever read.